Month: March 2009

Twitter Romance? (#itb09 sequel)

Twitter Romance?
Yes it is there! You only have to have an eye for it!

The inspiration for this post started with a tweet from my Icelandic Twitter friend @Hjortur of Marketing Safari:

twitter-romance-1

According to the Telegraph Jennifer Aniston has broken up with John Mayer,
because of his Twitter Addiction.

Whereupon I immediately answered: “She should have done this More Attention Please!“. (Due to some Twitter hiccups (as usual) the post itself is presently not available. Err not available in my Twitter stream, but I could find it back.) My post describes how a lady complains about the fact that her husband spends more time with his pc than with her. Reason why she has set up her own Blog and quotes:

My Blog with my nude pics receives more unique hits than the blog of my husband. This is my revenge. I wish he had more time for me than his PC

Quote from the famous Post Secret (10/12/2008 Sunday Secrets).
In the meantime Hjortur Retweets this:

And shortly thereafter this:

And Inga comments this

“Now why is this so Romantic?” You might ask

The answer is very simple – and I only realized it by checking out Inga after his retweet- : Hjortur is the Twittahholic of the family and Inga is his wife!

Imagine the long dark afternoons and evenings and nights in Iceland and a couple in one house: He with his pc and she with hers. Apparently Hjortur found the perfect solution for his addiction to Twitter and the possible impact that could have on his relation: He simply made his wife a Twitter aficionado herself and sometimes very romanticly twittering to each other. Moreoevr: if you read this post 15 years and 15 reasons of Inga about her relation with Hjortur, then you’ll know that Romance is okay with this couple.

“And what is the connection with #itb09?”
First: Hjortur would have loved to attend #itb09
Secondly: This couple in the same house tweeting romantically to each reminded me of the Bloggers Summit opening session at #itb09 where some 50 bloggers behind their laptops were twittering away to the whole world and each other, while they were introduced to each other. All of a sudden the moderator of the event suggested:”Maybe it is a good idea to look up from your computers screens and look at your neighbor and TALK rather than Tweet to him/her” which drew an Homeric laughter of the audience.

Idea
In the meantime I have suggested to Hjortur and Inga to start writing (or twittering) a Twitter Operette. She sings you know!

Some 20+ random Tips for Twittaholics

Happy Hotelier's Tweet Wheel
Happy Hotelier’s Tweet Wheel [The site is out of order since]

Twittoholics ?

Some claim Twitter is already over its top and some say it’s going to eat Google now that it has its own search facility…..I don’t know, but I do see Twitter becoming an ever growing source of (travel) information and (travel) inspiration for travelers and for myself in particular. So probably I’m a Twittoholic already.

Some 20+ Random Tips, Lists and Tools for Twittaholics

I’ve been looking around a bit, because as soon as you hit the magic 2000 Twitter cap – the number of people you can follow without Twitter blocking you until, as I understand it correctly, you have at least 90% of 2000, or more than 1800 followers yourself-, you will have to make decisions about who to follow and who not to follow on Twitter. In addition, the more followers you are getting, the more difficult it becomes to pinpoint a certain person if you want to share a certain piece of information with that person.

I’ve started to try and make my own Twitter Followers page manually by simply copying and pasting code from my followers page on Twitter. However I found out very soon that to be too time consuming. So I’ve looked for alternative ways to get some overview on Twitter. Better alternatives to get that overview is Friend or Follow (number 17 of the list) or Twitter Karma (number 11 of the list):

Not in a particular order, more in my usual hap snap way, here are some of my findings for you:

  1. If you’re new to Twitter look at this short video introduction: Twitter Introduction.
  2. Mashable posted Twitter Toolbox 60+Tools and Twittermania: 140+ More Twitter Tools! and more on the Twitter Tools subject.
  3. i-Stuff… Interesting Stuff that Matters: Twitter has an ample series of posts about Twitter Tools with annotations.
  4. If you’re interested in the Top 100 Dutch Twitterati, you can find them at Top 100 Twittergids NL.
  5. The Dutch site Twittergids is helpful anyway to pinpoint Dutch Twitterati in several categories. In its Travel Section I occupy the second position for the moment.
  6. Kevin Rose posted 10 tips 10 Ways to increase your Twitter Following recently.
  7. The post Dirty Secret Increase Followers Twitter also has some good tips. There I found the best balancing tool to balance those who follow you and those you are following: Less Friends Com.
  8. Kidtech Guru published a list of top 3 Twitterati in various countries
  9. Ouside my Brain listed some of the funniest Tweets he knows.
  10. Then you have the “real” Twittaholic with 1,000 top Twitterati. A list I’m not (yet:-)) on.
  11. Twitter Karma does it for me for the moment as it gives you a quick overview of the Followers and those you are Following with an option to block follow or block unfollow.
  12. WeFollow is the latest trend. Seems to be a start up of one of the guys behind Digg. I proudly Twittered that I was number one under their Hotel tag, but was soon repositioned as the number 2:-). Its Hotelier tag counts only 3 hoteliers Its Travel tag presently counts 79 pages with 1,963 Travel Twitterati
  13. Maybe interested in the Austrian Top 100? I am. I found a cool cook there.
  14. Amsterdam Based Twitter Counter can be useful.
  15. With FriendorFollow you get a quick overview of your followers or those you follow. For balancing it is less handy than Karma because you’ll have to manually follow of unfollow.
  16. Twitter Grader is another useful ranking tool to monitor your fellow Twitterati On its Dutch List I’m number 36 today
  17. Tweetscan is fine
  18. See my next post: Give you beloved one a pc and teach him/her to Tweet, you might keep your relation in tact:-)
  19. Tweepi seems a decent tool to more or less mass unfollow people. I found it at Mashable in their Spring Cleaning post.
  20. Top 50 Twitter Tracking and Analytics Tools For further reference.

Last edited by GJE on January 2, 2017

Google Invests in Pixazza, An AdSense for Images

pixazza

If you’re using images in your blog, you could be poised to make a nice little chunk of change from Pixazza.

The site launches today and hopes to become the AdSense for images. It uses crowdsourcing to match products in photos on participating sites with similar products available for purchase, and essentially turns bloggers and content creators into affiliate marketers who can cash in on Pixazza’s merchant network.

Publishers just need to create an account, login to the site, and embed the JavaScript code in the header section of their website. Then, by default, images even from previously published content are added to Pixazza’s shoppers’ queue, and once each image has been analyzed, a mouse over call to action will appear over each image.

via Mashable | Google Invests in Pixazza, An AdSense for Images.

Dutch Design (41): Dutchtastic

20 Dutchtastic Designs (COUNTDOWN)

(TREND HUNTER) I’m fascinated with Dutch design; not only because I’m a Dutchman, but mainly because Dutch design has a reach that exceeds far beyond the relative importance of the Netherlands, which has roughly only….¦ [More]

The Mr & Mrs Smith Presentation (Winding Down from the T-List – PhocusWright Travel Blogger Summit #ITB09 in Berlin part 2)

IMG_9590

It is really refreshing when you are sitting at a conference with presentations and discussions of travel and hospitality and tech types who only seem interested in their good self or their own product or service and are not outgoing and not interested in the guest, their clientèle, or only maybe in the money of the guest, to get a presentation of a really passionate couple. James Lohan and Tamara Heber-Percy (see also my interview with Tamara) , the husband and wife who founded the Mr and Mrs Smith Collections under the caption: Luxury and Romance meet Technology.

IMG_9581
Yes, I agree. It’s all about Respect!

They both come from a completely different background than travel and hospitality. Again their success shows that innovations in this industry frequently come from those outside the industry.

They started out with the production of the Mr & Mrs Smith guides. They described their difficulties with getting the guides published. Never before was a guide produced with one editor and one photographer for all properties. Eventually they decided to pyblish the guide all by themselves. The interesting thing is that added to the guides is a Mr and Mrs Smith membership card which gives the holder some extras as upgrades or a little present from their shop. That gives the brand a tremendous crowd to source from.

They are adamant about the properties being inspected by themselves or a member of their team of +40 in the meantime, because they strongly believe you cannot review a hotel properly without having experienced the look and feel of the place. In addition they sometimes team up with unusual partners for the hotel industry like lingerie brands. They also understand that you sometimes want to stay in a self catering accommodation or luxury chalet, rather than a hotel.

They seamlessly have merged their Blog (in the air since July 2005) into their main site. However Tamara was already out there scoring whatever was said about the brand in 2004: Shortly after I became aware of their guides via a post of my fellow editor Willem Vos at the Dutch language Weekend Hotel Blog she already commented there – note the date of the comment is not correct, as Willem had some problems in 2008 to migrate the blog to his new platform running on Ruby on Rail…whatever that may be, but I know I made the comment already in 2004-.

Here you see some footage of one of the rather unconventional and hilarious ad they presented at the keynote.

If even Gesa Noormann of Escapio says in a comment under Kevin’s Travolution coverage of the presentation:

Thanks Kevin for the fab article. Despite the fact that Mr and Mrs Smith are Escapio’s UK competitor, I can’t deny that their presentation was fantastic!

then you know your presentation was good even if you were dead tired.

Some personal notes:
I don’t understand jot from what Kevin’s caption means: “Corporate Barbarism does not begin at home say The Smiths”, but that could be my Dunglish.

If you are curious to see who the guy behind Escapio is look here. Even if I say it myself, I like the picture.

I think Willem should start talking with the two portfolios mentioned here, Mr & Mrs Smith and Escapio, or alternatively they should start talking with Willem, to see if there are possibilities to team up to cover The Netherlands and Belgium better than they do now separately.

Added March 24, 2009:

Via twitter I got the link of the same video on their site: Mr & Mrs Smith | Get a Room!. It has a bit better quality than the YouTube one